


ghost in the machine

by merle_p



Series: 8 Sensations [4]
Category: Sense8 (TV)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Coma, Friendship, Gen, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Pre-Slash, Psychic Abilities, Serious Injuries, Slashy, Telepathic Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-15 04:47:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5771878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merle_p/pseuds/merle_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even before Felix wakes up, he can hear Wolfgang talk.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>8 Sensations: Comfort</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	ghost in the machine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Imkerin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imkerin/gifts).



> Dear Imkerin, a tiny treat responding to your request for more Wolfgang&/Felix. I really hope you like this!

Even before Felix wakes up, he can hear Wolfgang talk, familiar voice sinking into his subconscious like the saline drip running into his blood, life-saving, reliable, steady.

It stirs up a vague sense of comfort, of longing in his mind, but not so urgent as to rouse him from the deep blackness he’s fallen into, because Wolfgang’s voice has been in his head, in his heart, for so long that it feels normal by now, as if it’s always been like this, almost as if it’s a part of himself.

Wolfgang talks to him when he’s awake: “You know he’s got the hots for you,” amused, when the hipster barkeep at the local dive bar pushes a tequila shot at Felix and waves him off when he’s trying to pay; “You know I don’t trust anyone else,” needling, when he’s trying to convince Felix to join whatever scheme he’s cooked up that week; “You know you’re worse than my cousin Marianne,” teasing, when Felix goes back twice to double-check whether he’s actually locked up the store for the night.

Wolfgang also talks to him when he’s asleep, although his voice sounds different in Felix’ dreams: a gentle thrum, soft encouragements and throaty chuckles and low whispers of things that Felix likes to pretend not to remember after he wakes.

And he talks to him now, a running commentary like a bass line to the staccato of the beeping hospital machines: things he’s missed out on since he got shot; stories he’s heard Wolfgang tell twenty, thirty, fifty times; memories that have become blurry after so many years of trying to forget. The machines breathe for him, and Wolfgang talks for him, and Felix’ heart beats for Wolfgang, barely.

But Wolfgang doesn’t just talk to him. Sometimes he talks to a woman, and Felix can’t hear her voice, but he knows she’s there, somehow he knows, and once, it feels like there’s a light breeze fanning along his arm, like the flutter of a silk shawl and the faint scent of cardamom and clove.

Sometimes, Wolfgang talks to a man, and there is a hint of manly sweat and the drum of a Latin beat in the air, and the metallic tinge of blood, but it must be a dream, a comatose hallucination, the sensations disappearing as quickly as they came, and it’s just Wolfgang again, talking, always talking.

Even when he talks to the others, Wolfgang speaks about him. He talks about how they first met, how they saved each other, how they became friends, and more than that, so much more; he says “Brothers by choice,” and “I don’t know what I’ll do if he doesn’t wake up,” and once he says “Fighting is easy,” but it doesn’t quite sound like he’s fighting anymore.

In the end, Felix isn't quite sure what pulls him back: If it’s the heartbroken crack in Wolfgang’s voice when he says “It was my fault,” or his sister’s sobbing accusations, the sound of her words distorted by the speaker of Wolfgang’s phone, or perhaps the whispers of curiosity in the back of his brain, the desire to find out just who it is Wolfgang is talking to. He only knows that one moment, there is blackness, and then there is a painful pressure in his throat, a heavy numbness in his chest, and the blurry image of Wolfgang, sitting at the side of his bed, face buried in his hands.

Felix wants to reach out, wants to say “Don’t be sad,” anything to make Wolfgang smile, but whatever is stuck in his throat stops the weak sounds he is trying to form, and he cannot get himself to lift a finger, much less an arm.

Then Wolfgang flinches, surprised, looks up as if someone poked him in the side, except there is no one, nothing, just Wolfgang and an empty chair and a window behind him, showing the perpetually gray Berlin sky.

“What?” Wolfgang says, confused, and then, strangely, nonsensically, “What do you mean he’s awake?”

Felix blinks, to force the blurriness from his gaze, to make sense of what’s going on. When he opens his eyes again, Wolfgang is staring at him.

“Oh god,” he says, and his hand comes up to touch Felix’s face, fingers skimming along his forehead, tracing an eyebrow, brushing his cheek, retreating again as if in fear.

“Oh god, you are awake.”

Wolfgang breaks, then, folds over, curls into himself as if someone punched him in the guts, and Felix feels something touch his hand, feels Wolfgang’s palm wrap around his wrist, the scratch of five-day stubble against his fingers, the trace of lips against his knuckles, wet tears against his skin.

“Shh,” he soothes, “shh,” or perhaps he doesn't, because there are still no sounds rising from his throat. But perhaps Wolfgang can hear him anyway, because he silently nods against his hand as if he understands, beard scraping along his forearm, followed by the sting of salty tears.

Or perhaps it’s not Felix at all, perhaps it’s another voice whispering comfort and support, and that thought doesn’t make any sense, and yet it does, but before he can begin to untangle its meaning, Felix feels his eyes growing heavy again, feels himself slipping away into darkness once more.

But it’s alright: Because someone out there is watching them, watching over them, watching out for them, and Felix sinks into sleep to the faint echo of a Latin beat, to the smell of cinnamon and heavy rain, to the brush of Wolfgang’s lips against his palm.

The machine is breathing for him, and Wolfgang is crying for him, and Felix’ heart is beating for Wolfgang, stubbornly, firmly.


End file.
